Mahanandi

Freshly harvested raw peanuts, boiled in salted water – we grew up eating them and we both love them. They are one of the popular street foods in India. But they are hard to find here in US, particularly in the northeastern states. Imagine my surprise when I saw them at Subji Mandi, NJ during our recent trip.

We bought 5 pounds, we couldn’t wait, ate half of them raw on our return trip. We cooked the remaining half in salted water. They are wonderfully tasty and we couldn’t get enough of them. We should have bought lot more. Perhaps next time, whenever that’s going to be.

For more weekend herb/food ingredient blogging, checkout Kalyn’s Kitchen.

Festival feast without bajjis – no way

Dipped them in a batter, prepared with gram flour(besan), red chilli powder, salt, baking soda, ajwain seeds(Vaamu) and water. (Check out this post for ingredients photo.) Then deep fried them in hot oil.

Platefull of Chilli-Onion-Potato Bajjis

Ingredients:

For Purnam
One cup chana dal(sanaga pappu)
One to one and half cups of jaggery– powdered
One tablespoon of poppy seeds(gasa gasaalu)
Two cardamom pods, seeds powdered
Purnam Wrap
One cup all purpose flour (maida)
Quarter cup of ghee
Half cup of water

Preparation:

Step 1:(Two hours before)

Prepare soft, pliable dough with all purpose flour, water and ghee(1 or 2 tablespoons).

Pressure cook chana dal in plenty of water until one whistle. Do not Overcook the dal. The cooked dal must be rigidly soft and not broken. Drain using a colander. (We make a tasty rasam with this dal water called bhakshala rasam.) Spread out the cooked chana dal on a clean cotton cloth or on paper towels, for atleast one hour, so that all the moisture is absorbed from them.

Step 2:(one hour before)

Purnam: Using a food processor/blender make a paste of cooked and now completely dried chana dal and powdered jaggery, cardamom powder. Do not add water. The purnam should come out as firm ball. In case if it is more on the runny side or soggy, cook it on stove top on medium-low heat for about 5 to 10 minutes, continuously stirring and let it cool. This will definitely make the purnam firmer and that is what we want consistency-wise for this recipe.

Take the dough on a flat surface, add ghee and knead it for few minutes then punch with your fist few times. Pour ghee knead and punch, do these steps for at least 5 to 10 minutes. All this is to make the dough more pliable and when pulled, it should stretch without breaking.

Step 3:(Show time)

Divide the dough into marble sized balls.

On aluminum foil or on the back of a steel plate (traditionally banana leaf is used), apply liberal amounts ghee and roll out each ball into a small round using a rolling pin or with your hand. Keep a lime sized Purnam in the middle and cover it by bringing the edges together. Dip your fingers in oil and using them, flatten the ball, starting at the edges, gradually pressing towards the center, into a thin, flat, circular shape.

Lay the foil on the griddle and carefully using a spatula, separate the bhaksham from the foil onto the warm(not hot) iron griddle. Fry or cook it on medium-low heat, applying liberal amounts of ghee, till golden (14 carat gold), on both sides. Sprinkle some poppy seeds on each side, keep on the griddle for few more minutes and remove.

Naivedyam is ready.

Serve them with ghee, chitrannam and some bajjis. Festival Feast is ready!

Recipe Source: Family – Amma & Attamma

Nimmakaya Pulihora:

Prasadam in temples, part of festival feast, or simple lunch – Chitrannam or lemon rice plays an important part of South Indian meal. Our celebratory feasts are not complete without this particular dish. The tangy rice prepared with lemon juice refreshes the palate after the sweet beginnings, as you may already know it is an Indian tradition to serve the sweet first. I think serving these two, traditional Indian sweet and chitrannam together, is our elders way of reminding us to appreciate life moments, both sweet and sour. That is why, I think the temple prasadam or the celebratory food in all moments of our lives includes chitrannam.

People, who know the taste, crave this lemony rice. Even though the recipe is so simple to make, there is always one expert in the family who prepares the best chitrannam. In my home, I can manage an edible one, but Vijay prepares the ‘can’t get enough’ version. We do use the same ingredients and methods; still I don’t know how his version always turns out so exceptional. I am sure it is true in every other south Indian family too. Only chosen few are blessed by Annapurna, the Goddess of Food, to prepare this favorite food of Gods. It is one of those recipes, where either you have it or you don’t. And I am sorry to say that even though I know the authentic recipe, follow all the tricks and tips still the end result in my case always turns out mediocre. There is no magic in my hand.:)

What about you, are you the chosen one? Try it out, if you have not already done so.

Recipe:
(Serves two)

Rice:
4 cups of freshly cooked rice. (Any kind of white rice is ok for this recipe, but I prefer ‘Sona Masuri’. Cook it like for pulao or fried rice but not like pongal or risotto.
Limes and Chillies
2 to 3 juicy limes – cut and juice to a cup
6 to 8 green chillies, Indian or Thai variety – slit vertically
(Chitrannam needs spicy punch from chillies. So, add one or two chillies (of any variety) more than your normal tolerance of chillies. Otherwise the dish falls apart, and lime juice dominates the taste.)
Seasoning
¼ cup – Chana dal (senaga pappu), pre-soaked in water at least half an hour before.
2 tablespoons – urad dal (minapa pappu)
1 teaspoon each – salt and turmeric
2 tablespoons –ghee, Or oil for calorie-consicous.
For popu or tadka
1/2 tsp each – mustard seeds, cumin, and red dry chilli pieces.
12- 15 fresh curry leaves. Don’t forget to add the fresh curry leaves. Chitrannam is not authentic or complete without the curry leaves.

You can prepare decent, basic version of chitrannam with the above items. But for special occasions, and if you want to impress guests or family, then you need the following items too.

Nuts
Quarter cup – cashews
Quarter cup – peanuts
Veggies
Quarter cup vegetables – I usually add potato, finely cubed, sometimes Indian type brinjal and shredded carrot too.
5 to 6 majjiga mirapa kaayalu (Green chillies soaked in buttermilk and completely dried in sun, a specialty of Andhra), deep fried in oil.

Method:

In a skillet, heat one tablespoon of ghee. First add peanuts, fry them until they turn light brown. Remove. Add and fry cashews next. Remove from the pan to a plate, keep them aside.

Now in the same skillet, add another tablespoon of ghee. Heat. Add and fry the curry leaves first. Then cumin and mustard seeds. When seeds start to splutter, add the split green chillies, chana dal, urad dal, and cubed potatoes. Saute them till golden and crisp. In the end, sprinkle half teaspoon turmeric for that golden yellow color. Mix and then saute for another one to two minutes.

Sauteing the cashews and Peanuts…… Sauteing the veggies and dals

Stirring in turmeric………. Squeezing some lime juice over rice and sauteed ingredients

Add the sauteed ingredients of skillet, and also the toasted peanuts and cashews to the cooked rice. Stir in salt and sprinkle the limejuice. Combine thoroughly and delicately (without breaking the rice grains) with your hand or using a big slotted spoon.

Have a taste, it should zing or shock your taste buds like sucking on a fresh lime wedge. If not, add some more limejuice and salt. Mix again. And keep in mind that rice absorbs the limejuice, and the tanginess you feel during the preparation reduces in intensity after sometime.

Serve with fried majjiga mirapakaayalu (buttermilk soaked, dried green chillies) and a cup of yogurt for a nice meal.

chitrannam(Lemon Rice) with majjiga mirapa kaayalu.

Chitrannam, the English translation of this Telugu word is chitra= wonderful, magical, Annam= rice. This Refreshing lemony rice is all that and more, and tastes great when served hot or cold.

Recipe Source:Attamma(MIL)

Ridge Gourd Curry

Beera kaaya/Turai/Ridge Gourd is often compared as an Indian equal of zucchini, but ridge gourd tastes so much better. They have a succulent and tender flesh with a delicate, mildly sweet flavor, like crisp lettuce pieces. Ridge gourd is one of my favorite vegetables of all time and I don’t think I ever get tired of this vegetable. It tastes great cooked as it is or as medley with other vegetables like potatoes and carrots.

They are available almost year round in India and also here at US Indian grocery shops. If it is your first time buying ridge gourd, keep in mind to select only fresh looking, young, thin ones. The overripe, stout ones, just like all gourds, won’t have much flesh inside of them and taste somewhat bitter. And also avoid any, that feel soft or generally look limp, as they will be dry and not worth using. Some useful tips.

The following recipe is one way I prepare ridge gourd often and enjoy it very much.

Recipe:

2 to 3 young, fresh looking ridge gourds – With a peeler, scrape the outer skin, mainly the protruded hard ridges. Wash and dice into bite-sized pieces.
Small onion- cut into small pieces
1 or 2 green chillies and 1 tablespoon coconut pieces – grind to smooth
¼ cup or 2 to 3 tablespoons of milk
¼ tsp of turmeric
¼ tsp salt or to taste
Popu or tadka Ingredients (cumin, mustard seeds, curry leaves)

Heat a pan and do the popu or tadka (frying half teaspoon of mustard, cumin seeds, dry chilli and curry leaves in one tsp of oil).

To this popu, add onions, saute them for few minutes to soft.

Add the ridge gourd pieces, coconut-green chilli paste, milk and turmeric.

Mix them all well. Cover the pan partially and cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally. Within 10 minutes, the vegetable will be cooked to tender. If there is lot of water in the pan, then increase the heat to high, remove the lid and cook on high heat for few minutes, until all the water evaporates.

At the end, stir in salt. (Salt brings out the water in vegetables, so in saute style curries, always add salt only at the end.) Mix and turn off the heat.

Serve with rice and dal as side dish or with chapati.

Beerakaaya (Ridge Gourd): Raw and cut ~ ~ ~ Cooked and served.

Recipe source: Amma (Mother). We call this curry “palu posina beerakaya kura” in Telugu.

I’ve been quite busy for the past couple of days, cleaning up the house, rearranging things. All these are part of the preparation for the most important festival, ‘Vijaya Dasami’. The ten-day festival, also called ‘Dassera’ or ‘Nava Ratri’, celebrates the Goddess Durga, the Mother Force of Hindu Scriptures. The festival starts from today, 4th Oct and ends on 12th with grand prayers, processions and feasts.

It is very easy to let go of these traditions and say “whatever or next year”. Because we live in an isolated environment, far from our traditions and festivals, particularly from the festive mood and the atmosphere. I understand the values and importance of these festivals so I try to be enthusiastic to follow the rituals and celebrate as much as possible.

What I am going to do on my food blog during these ten days of festival is to try to write about all the food items that I am going to prepare on the grand festival day, Vijaya Dasami. I usually prepare: a dal, two types of curries, rasam, chutney, papads, bajji, chitrannam with lemons, rice and bhakshalu(poli). I am planning to write about one item each day for the next ten days.

I am going to start my festival food with dal, not any dal but the Andhra special –Gongura dal.

For the uninitiated in Andhra cuisine, Gongura is a leafy vegetable and has very distinctive sour taste. For the past couple of years we are able to purchase it in Indian stores, here in US too. I am sorry but I don’t know its English name, it’s usually sold here also as ‘Gongura’, under its Telugu name. When cooked with toor dal or as pickle, it wakes up, more like zings the taste buds and makes you crave its unique taste.

Recipe:

1 bunch of Gongura, leaves separated & washed
1 cup or four fistfuls of toor dal
Green chillies at least 6, jalapeno variety
1 medium sized onion, cut into small pieces
1/2 tsp of turmeric

What makes this recipe unique(my family variation) and so tasty is adding one garlic clove, half tsp of coriander seeds and cumin, all together made into smooth paste and then added to the dal. This paste compliments and gives wonderful aroma and taste when cooked with gongura.

Preparation:
In a pressure cooker, take all of the above ingredients and add one glass of water. Mix them once and pressure cook until three to four whistles or until toordal is tender and breaks apart when held. Wait until the pressure is released, remove the lid and add one teaspoon of salt to this cooked mixture and mash it with a wooden pappu gutti or using an immersion blender into smooth paste.

Now, in a sauce pan, over low medium heat, do the popu or tadka (means toasting the mustard, cumin seeds, red chilli pieces and curry leaves in one tablespoon of ghee or oil). Add the cooked and mashed gongura dal to this popu. Stir all of it once and cover with a lid. Gongura dal is ready.

Tastes great with rice or jowar roti. Best way ofcourse is the combination of this dal mixed with rice, ghee and papad.

Gongura and rice mudda(ball) on sabudana(sago) papad.

Lovely Sam of Beck & Posh chose vegan theme for this month’s IMBB. I never knew that vegans are called by these names or they feel that way about themselves here in US until I read her introductory post to this event. With much improved knowledge of stereotypes, here is my vegan contribution, ‘cashew sweet’: a traditional snack, my mother used to prepare and give us after school, when we were kids. The only thing I did differently because of vegan theme is I applied peanut oil to the settling pan instead of ghee.
The following recipe is simple, easy and adaptable to other types of nuts particularly peanuts.

Cashew Sweet:

2 cups of lightly toasted cashews
2 cups of powdered jaggery
1 cup of water
A greased tray to pour the cooked cashew mixture

In a large sturdy pan, combine jaggery and water. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until jaggery dissolves into water. Bring this to a boil. You see lot of bubbling and raising to the surface action going on by now. Stir, stir and stir until the jaggery syrup reaches soft- crack stage meaning when you drop a bit of this syrup into cold water, it will solidify into threads.

When jaggery syrup reaches this consistency, immediately & quickly add cashews, and stir constantly for few minutes. Turn off the heat and pour this mixture onto a greased pan. When it is still hot, make lines with a knife and leave it to cool. When cooled, break along the lines to make squares. Store them in an airtight container.

These Cashew brittles or tikkis are natural-food alternatives to the very fatty and sugary standard editions, a sublime and perfect pairing of nature’s goodness and man’s intelligence (or is it sweet tooth). The flavor is completely different and the jaggery really sings out. Go on.. try them.

Some tips:

1. Only a small quantity of water is sufficient while making the syrup. One cup of water is enough for upto 3 cups of jaggery powder.

2. Time it takes to make this sweet is maximum 30 minutes. Prepare to spend all this time infront of the stove, no multitasking.

3. And the most important thing is gauging the jaggery syrup readiness. When you are making this sweet, or any kind of brittle for that matter, always keep a cup of cool water by the stove side. You can check the readiness by drizzling a few drops of syrup into the cool water. If it forms strings that you can easily prod into a ball, it’s at the soft-crack stage. This is where you should add nuts to the syrup. As soon as you add the nuts to the syrup, the mixture starts to solidfy or reaches the hard-crack stage very fast, within a couple of minutes. You made a perfect brittle.
If the syrup dissolves and disintegrates in the water, the syrup is not cooked enough yet. If it tightly balls up and sinks to the bottom or if syrups color turns from gold to black, then you have overcooked it.
This website very clearly demonstrates the various stages of sugar syrup, check it out if you want to know more about candy making. It also has video demonstration of various sugar stages (applies to Jaggery syrup too) both in real player and quick time, cool!

4. Finally, even after following all these steps, if it doesn’t come out as brittle as it should be, then blame it on weather and high humidity. What I do in those cases is, keep the greased tray with cashew mixture in the freezer for atleast one hour. I don’t know how, but the freezer turns the sorry mess from saggy to solid brittle like and they can be easily breaked along the lines made earlier. This freezer version tastes ok but they will test your dental health. :)-

Tagged with: IMBB # 19 + Vegan

We were on the road, traveling for the past couple of days and returned “home sweet home”, last night. During our trip, we made a brief stop at Oak tree road, New Jersey to fill up our pantry and purchased lots Indian grocery and vegetables etc.

There are three main grocery shops on Oak tree road, NJ that I know of. Apna Bazar, Patel Brothers and Subji Mandi. I usually shop at Subji Mandi. Although I am satisfied with their prices and range of Indian stuff they carry, I am still curious to know about the other two shops. Are there any readers of this blog who are regular shoppers at Oak tree road, did or can compare the three and tell me which one you like better. I know it’s all personal, still I want to know what you think of these three shops and your experience of Oak tree road. Any tips and suggestions from a local shopper are greatly appreciated by this out of state, time constrained shopper on rush. Thanks.

One of the vegetables I bought at Subji Mandi are these drumsticks or Munaga Kaayalu. They look like musical sticks, so the name. Greenish firm outside but insides are filled with white colored mildly sweet flesh and tasty small white seeds. They are known to be a great source of Vitamin A. They taste great in sambhar and rasam but my favorite way to cook them is using my mother’s recipe, the traditional curry version with fresh coconut and tomatoes.

Recipe:

3 drumsticks – lightly scrapped with a peeler and cut into small finger length pieces.
3 big ripe juicy tomatoes – cut into small pieces
1 medium onion finely chopped lengthwise
½ tsp of each of red chilli powder and salt
Pinch of turmeric
Make a smooth paste
¼ cup of fresh coconut +
Half inch piece of ginger + 2 garlic cloves and 6 sprigs of fresh cilantro
For popu or tadka
½ teaspoon each of cumin, mustard seeds, minced garlic and few curry leaves

Preparation:

In a pan, heat one tsp of peanut oil over medium heat. Add half tsp each of cumin, mustard seeds, when they start to splutter, add onions, and saut� them for few minutes. Add tomatoes and half cup of water. Cook them covered until the tomatoes soften and turn into juicy mush.

At this stage, add the cut drumstick(Munaga Kaaya) pieces. Stir in coconut-cilantro paste, salt, red chilli powder, turmeric and half glass of water. Cover and cook for about 15 to 20 minutes or until drumstick pieces are tender to touch but intact in shape. Serve warm.

Taste great with rice and with pulao.

Drumstick Curry and Rice
The creamy flesh of drumsticks cooked in this way, soaks up the coconut milk-tomato juice and tastes sweet, spicy and tangy when chewed. Truly an Andhra delight to taste buds.

Recipe Source: Amma

I don’t know why but we both are losing weight, significant amounts, since coming back from India. We are not doing anything out of ordinary and on our recent yearly medical checkup, the family doctor billed our medical reports as excellent, so no problems there. This sudden weight loss is baffling us. The only reason for this I can think of is homesickness. Leaving the dear and near ones back home, I thought it would get easy with age and time, but not so in our case, it seems. The life we created here seems so dull, empty and purposeless. Is this what happens in 30’s, if so, I would love to go back to the carefree 20’s. Little bit early for a midlife crisis, I know.

To counter the weight loss and also to satiate my cravings for an Indian sweet, we made Mysore Pak last Sunday. A deliciously rich, decadent sweet, made of chickpea flour and pure ghee. South India’s favorite. The sweet is as colorful and mouthful as its name sounds. All of our sweets names are like that, unique and colorful… Badusha, Chandra Kala, Mohan Bhag etc.,

There are no shortcuts for this sweet; you need quality ingredients and no cutbacks on the amount of ghee. Otherwise you end up with not so tasty, yellow brick kind of mixture. So use freshest possible ingredients, mainly besan flour for this recipe. And also you need an extra pair of hands. So keep family or friends on the side.

Recipe:
1 cup Besan flour, sift to aerate & to remove any lumps
1 cup ghee, melted & at room temperature
3/4 to 1 cup sugar – your wish
2 cardamom pods, seeds powdered

In a big sturdy pot, take one cup of water, add sugar and bring them to boil till the sugar syrup reaches one string consistency. Reduce the heat.
Now pour the ghee and besan flour in a steady stream into the sugar syrup while stirring. You need an extra hand here. Continuously and thoroughly stirring, cook until the ghee starts to leave the sides of the pan and the mixture starts to thicken and turns to become porous and light gold in color. Stir in the cardamom powder.

Immediately pour onto a greased tray & evenly level it out with a spatula. When it is still hot, cut into diamond shapes. Makes about 10 to 12 pieces.

Mysore Pak – Simple, sinfully rich tasting, sweet golden diamond

I bought okra (benda Kaayalu) from Wal-Mart supercenter’s frozen section last weekend. As mush as I detest Wal-Mart business practices, I still shop there occasionally for groceries during fall and winter times, as we live in a rural area, and fresh vegetables that I prefer are really pricy after the summer. This behemoth shop carries quite a range of fresh and frozen vegetables at affordable prices year long.

After reading some of the fellow food bloggers posts about okra, I was tempted to dish out my favorite okra recipe from Nandyala, the famous bendakaaya sambar (okra sambar).

Smooth and silky okra when cooked in sambar, absorbs all the wonderful flavors of sambar spices and takes ‘I can’t believe this is okra’ kind of avatar, and goes down without resistance when eaten.

Recipe:

Toor dal (Kandi Pappu):
1 cup of Toor dal – In a pressure cooker, take toor dal and water in 1:2 ratio, cook to soft, and mash the dal to smooth consistency.
Sambar powder Preparation:
1 teaspoon each – cumin, coriander, fenugreek seeds, chana dal, urad dal and dry coconut, Dry roast. Cool. Powder them together to fine. Or buy readymade sambar powder from an Indian store. We need atleast a tablespoon of sambar powder for this recipe.
Tamarind:
Soak key-lime sized tamarind in half cup of water for 10min. This will soften the tamarind. Squeeze the pulp and discard the seeds.
Veggies for Sambhar:
Cut – 10 to 15 whole okra, 10 to 15 cherry tomatoes and one onion (What shape and size, see the photo above)
Seasoning:
Salt, red chilli powder and turmeric – half teaspoon each, or to taste.
For popu or tadka:
1 teaspoon peanut oil
½ tsp each – curry leaves, chopped garlic, cumin and mustard seeds

Cooked Okra-Tomato Veggie Mixture……. Toor dal added to the veggie mixture

Preparation:

In a big pot, take peanut oil. On medium heat, do the popu or tadka(toast curry leaves, garlic, cumin and mustard seeds). When seeds start to pop, add the onions and saute to soft. Then add tomatoes and okra pieces. Also stir in sambar powder, red chilli powder, turmeric, salt, tamarind and one glass of water. Bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat, cover the pan, let simmer for about 10-15 minutes or until the okra is tender.

Add the cooked and mashed toor dal to the simmering contents in the pot. Mix and have a taste. Adjust the salt and chilli powder to your taste and bring to a boil. Let it simmer for about 15 minutes. Turn off the heat. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve. I usually let it sit for at least for about 15 to 30 minutes, so that when it is served, you can actually taste the flavor of sambar powder.

Okra Sambhar with rice ~ Our Meal Today

During festival times, the sugar of choice at our home for Naivedyam is jaggery.

Jaggery – the pure, wholesome and traditional sweetener of India is made out of raw sugarcane juice by slowly simmering it in big pans until all the water is evaporated. The final solid product is then poured into moulds. The complete process is 100% chemical-free, prepared in natural way and no animal parts (bones) are used or added at any stage. This process is unlike the commercial sugar manufacturing, where cane juice is subjected to a potpourri of chemicals as sulfur dioxide, lime, phosphoric acid, bleaching agents & viscosity reducers.

How do I know all this? Well, some of our relatives cultivate sugarcane and produce jaggery in small scale. They do that in the fields after harvesting the sugarcane. It is quite an event with all the relatives and friends come to help and taste. The thing I always remember is the smell. The sweet smell of boiling sugarcane follows you forever.

It is the ancient wisdom and is now scientifically proven that jaggery is known for its many medicinal benefits. One thing I know is jaggery is rich in Iron. In India, people who know, even doctors advise anaemics and pregnant women to take jaggery daily to increase their hemoglobin levels.

What can I say about the taste of jaggery- there is always the sweet taste but there is something more. The taste is not a mind numbing sweetness but more subtle, much more flavorful and makes us want more. Its sweetness is quite different from that of commercial sugar, brown sugar or even molasses. Because it contains the minerals and vitamins inherently present in sugarcane juice.

In addition to using it for traditional sweets of festival times, like Undrallu, Jaggery is my sweetener of choice always, for ragi malt, vegetable curries, rasam, occasionally for tea & coffee. Compare to commercial sugar, it is not that expensive. You can buy a 10-pound block of jaggery for about 5 to 8 dollars in an Indian grocery shop, here in US.

Jaggery from India

Vinayaka Chavati Festival Sweet – Undrallu

Undrallu is a sweet, especially prepared on Vinayaka Chavithi festival. They are made with jaggery and chana dal then wrapped in dough and deep-fried in oil or ghee. The tradition is we have to prepare 9 varieties of undrallu with different fillings for this festival. My mother prepares 9 varieties for puja whenever we girls visit home. She has a saint like patience and great time management. You see we have to prepare all varities on the day of festival, by afternoon while on fasting. At least the person who does the puja and cooking must be on fasting till the puja is done. Family members would taste the festival specials only after the puja and naivedyam are done. Our customs dictate that the first offerings on festivals and special occasions must be to God, a sign of respect.

Recipe:
(For two)

For Purnam:

One cup – chana dal
One cup jaggery (pounded into tiny pieces)
6 cardamom pods, seeds separated and powdered

Wash chana dal and take them in a pressure cooker. Add the cardamom and about one cup water. Mix and pressure cook to 3 whistles, till the chana dal is firmly-soft. There should be no water left in pressure cooker. and we want a tight cooked chana dal. If there is excessive water, drain the dal using a colander and then spread the cooked dal on paper towels or on a cotton cloth to remove the moisture and to make them firm.

In a food processor (mixer), or in a stone mortar, take the cooked chana dal. Add jaggery and grind to smooth. The end product must be solid and it has to hold the shape. Make baby’s fist sized small rounds. My mother also dips the rounds in coconut gratings.

This is Purnam.

Chana Dal, Jaggery and Cardamom ~ Pressure-cooked, Mashed and Made to Small Rounds called Purnam

Preparing the Dough:

There are two kinds of wraps for the Purnam.

1. Urad dal and rice flour wrap called chovi. For it, take quarter cup of urad dal and soak them in water overnight. First thing in the morning, drain water and grind the dal in a blender to smooth adding very little water. Remove to a cup and half cup of rice flour. Mix them together thoroughly. Keep it covered for about 2 to 3 hours. This is called chovi. Purnam balls are dipped in this batter and fried in oil or ghee. Tasty and good.

2. Maida (all purpose flour) wrap: My mother’s method and I prefer this wrap.
Take one cup all-purpose flour (maida) in a bowl. Make a well in the center and add about half cup water. Mix and make a firm dough. Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons ghee and gently knead the dough, until it becomes very soft and pliable. Keep it covered for about 2 to 3 hours. Preparing the maida dough is the first thing I do in the kitchen on festival day morning.

When you are ready with purnam:
Take out and knead the dough again adding ghee for about 5 minutes.
Divide the dough into marble sized rounds.
Roll out each one into a small round using a rolling pin or with hand, thin at the edges and thick in the middle.
Place a lemon sized Purnam in the middle and cover it by bringing the edges together. Place them on a plate and cover with a wet cloth, to prevent drying out.
Repeat the procedure for all the dough rounds with the purnam.

Once you are done, place a kadai on stove-top. Add and heat the oil or ghee for deep-frying.
Gently drop the rounds and deep fry them to pale gold. Offer them to God first, then enjoy.

I prepared them in two shapes, the round ones are called undrallu, and the other two are called Kudumulu in Telugu.

Hindu Kush mountain range touching the skies.

An impromptu party with a ‘butter cake’ from our neighbourhood famous ‘Peevis’ bakery on Brother-in-law’s wedding anniversary, amid the other BIL marraige hungama. In addition to homemade sweets like payasam etc., celebrating with a cake seems to be a must and norm nowadays, a recent happening in small towns like ours.

Preparing jangris is an art, so we hired the “Master”.

“Master” at work (Yes, master is his nickname, really, because of his expertise in making traditional sweets), finishing off preparing the last batch of jangris.
Piping the jangri batter in beautiful flower shape in hot oil.
Deep fried jangris taking a sugary soak in cardamom infused sugar syrup.

Jangri: A traditional sweet, usually made for marraiges, my favourite.

Pappulu, Putnala pappulu or Dalia are prepared from chickpeas. Not the regular, white chickpeas but from a special variety of chickpeas specific to India and commonly sold under the name “Kala Chana or Black Chickpeas”.

The preparation of pappulu (dalia) is a fascinating process. First, the black chickpeas get soaked in water for several hours, and then after draining, chickpeas are roasted in big caldrons under controlled low fire for several hours. Until the chickpeas turn to crisp. Once the roasting process is completed, the hulls of chickpeas will be removed and each chickpea will be split into two equal pieces. This whole soaking-roasting process intensifies the chickpea flavor, and also changes them to light yellow, mildly sweet pappulu or Dalia. This process is done in special places called Bhattis. Almost every town in Andhra Pradesh would have a bhatti. People go there to buy the freshly prepared pappulu and also the puffed rice There were couple of bhattis near our home in Nandyala and we were used to buy them fresh and hot from those places.

Among all the lentil types available in an Indian store, pappulu are the only one which you can just open the packet and pop them into mouth. As kids and even now, we love to eat them as they are or mixed with murmura. They are a snack item for us, like popcorn. If you are from South India, I assume you already know the pappula taste. For those of you who don’t, you must try them at least once. They are usually sold in Indian grocery shops under the label “Dalia” in lentil section. They are really great tasting, guilt free snack.

Pappula Podi is a famous Andhra preparation. In some parts of Andhra this is also called gunpowder. We add it to season the curries and also to prepare chutneys and to spread on dosas, idly, pongali and upma. Pappula Podi not only spices but also adds a mild sweetness to the preparation. This following recipe is from my mother’s and my most valued one. If you are used to besan (gram flour) preparations, try this one instead. You will be delighted, I promise.

Pappula Podi:

1 cup – Pappulu
6 to 8 – dried red chillies, Indian variety
2 tablespoons – grated coconut or dried coconut pieces
1 tablespoon – cumin
½ teaspoon – salt or to taste
4 garlic cloves (this is optional, even without garlic this powder tastes great.)

Take pappulu, chillies, coconut, cumin, garlic and salt in a clean and dry mixer jar or food processor. Grind to fine powder. This is a dry preparation and do not add water. Store the powder in a clean, dry, airtight container. This will stay fresh as long as it remains dry.

The following are the most common ways I enjoy the Pappula Podi:

1. Add a tablespoon of Podi to fistful of cooked rice. Add a teaspoon of ghee. Mix and make small rounds. Eat.

2. Add a tablespoon of Podi to cooked rice and dal (tomato or spinach etc). Add a teaspoon of ghee. Mix and eat.

3. Prepare dosas and spread the pappula Podi on the dosa for Masala Dosa. Yum!

4. Dunk and coat the Idly, Upma and pongal morsels in Pappula Podi, and eat. My new favorite is Pappula Podi and oatmeal upma combination.

5. I also add pappula Podi to vegetable curries. Cabbage, bell pepper, green beans and Indian variety broad beans (Chikkudu kaya), the sauté style curries with these vegetables taste great spiced with pappula Podi. I usually sprinkle one tablespoon of this powder before turning off the heat.)

6. Add roasted onion, garlic and few branches of fresh cilantro to Pappula Podi, along with about half glass of water. Grind to smooth to make an instant chutney.

Pappula Podi

Few beetroots peeled and sliced into bite sized pieces, tossed and cooked in one teaspoon of peanut oil, then seasoned with salt and red pepper flakes. Served with chapatis, our meal is a simple fare today.

Our lunch today is big on taste, small on size, a quick and comforting sort of meal:

Tomato Rasam,
Sandwich with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, spinach, walnuts and red chilli garlic powder.
Yogurt with shredded carrot

Tomato Rasam Recipe:

Take few very ripe tomatoes, few leaves of cilantro and small piece of tamarind in a vessel.

Add one cup of water to them and hand squeeze the tomatoes along with other ingredients until nothing hard left to squeeze (work those hand muscles). Add water if needed. Leave the contents undisturbed for few minutes to get the pulp settled at the bottom. Separate or strain the juice from the sediment below. How tasty the rasam depends on how juicy and fresh the tomatoes are. So attempt this rasam only with decent quality ripe or cherry tomatoes.

In a mortar take half teaspoon each of black peppercorns, cumin seeds and coriander seeds and make a fine powder of them with a pestle.

Do the popu (frying mustards seeds, cumin and curry leaves in oil), use just a drop of oil for popu. Even 1 tsp of oil is too much for the rasam, it spoils the rasam taste with oiliness. To the popu, add the tomato-tamarind juice and half to one glass of water. Don’t dilute it too much with water. Add half teaspoon of salt, dhania-jeera-pepper powder and one teaspoon of sugar or powdered jaggery. Mix it once, have a taste and adjust the seasonings. And bring it to a boil. Let it simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes, then turn off the heat.

You can have it as soup or with rice. Tomatoes’ sweet tartness, tamarind’s sourness and jaggery’s sweetness combine and make this into one tasty rasam.